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Author Topic:   Evolutionary Theory Explains Diversity
NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 136 of 160 (517565)
08-01-2009 4:48 PM
Reply to: Message 135 by subbie
08-01-2009 4:25 PM


And the numbers are wrong too...
and the date is given as around 150,000 to 180,000 years ago (IIRC). But for a creationist that isn't such a big miss (only 30 times instead of a million times wrong )
The date for Y-adam is about 60,000 years I think.
You can add that to Alan's record for wrongs. Very impressive indeed.

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 Message 135 by subbie, posted 08-01-2009 4:25 PM subbie has replied

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subbie
Member (Idle past 1254 days)
Posts: 3509
Joined: 02-26-2006


Message 137 of 160 (517566)
08-01-2009 4:53 PM
Reply to: Message 136 by NosyNed
08-01-2009 4:48 PM


{More off-topic sniping hidden}
{More off-topic sniping hidden}
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : {More off-topic sniping hidden}

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 Message 136 by NosyNed, posted 08-01-2009 4:48 PM NosyNed has not replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 138 of 160 (517646)
08-02-2009 12:43 AM
Reply to: Message 95 by Alan Clarke
07-31-2009 2:27 PM


The topic is diversity as explained by evolutionary processes
Hi Alan Clarke, welcome to the fray, sorry I was away when you posted your first reply on this thread. Things seem to have gone south in my absence.
Evolution theory FAILS at explaining diversity.
Curiously, you don't answer why this makes evolution theory a failure at explaining diversity. Diversity is explained by speciation and the diversification of daughter populations from a parent population, and while this will involve transitions from one species to a new species or two, those transitions don't have to be extreme, just different enough to prevent or discourage interbreeding of the daughter populations.
Let me help you a little with a review of some details here:
For one such example, refer to the failed prediction of what "Pakicetus" should have looked like in totality given only a skull in 1983.
What the theory of evolution predicts is that daughter species will have some hereditary traits in common with a parent species. In this particular case, there were several homologies between the skull found and the skull of whales - the shared traits of the daughter populations with the ancestral one. Because those homologies were closer to known whale ancestors than to artiodactyl ancestors, and so erred on the side of conservative to place it closer to whale than the ancestral artiodactyl.
The evolutionary model predicted it should look inbetween a land dwelling animal and an aquatic animal: WRONG!!
To begin with you are trying to pretend that an artistic rendering is an actual prediction of Gingrich in the paper he published - do you have the citation and a quote that validates that? The information is readily available for those who want to learn the facts:
See Philip D. Gingerich
Research on the Origin and Early Evolution of Whales (Cetacea)
quote:
The mammalian order Cetacea is divided into three suborders: (1) Oligocene to Recent Odontoceti or 'toothed whales'” living today; (2) Oligocene to Recent Mysticeti or 'baleen whales'” living today; and (3) older and more primitive Eocene Archaeoceti or 'archaic whales'” which evolved from land mammals and gave rise to later odontocetes and mysticetes. My research on the origin and early evolution of whales is focused on archaeocetes. I have been fortunate to work with many colleagues on this in Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and India, (see co-authors in the publication list below). The stages of early whale evolution that we have documented are shown here in Figure 1. We have found and collected virtually complete skeletons of middle-to-late Eocene Basilosauridae (Dorudon and Basilosaurus), exceptionally complete skeletons of middle Eocene Protocetidae (especially Rodhocetus and Artiocetus), and a partial skull of earliest middle Eocene Pakicetidae (Pakicetus). Recovery of diagnostic ankle bones in the skeletons of primitive protocetids during our field work in Pakistan in 2000 confirmed their derivation from Artiodactyla (the mammalian order including cows, deer, hippos, etc.), and showed convincingly that whales did not originate from mesonychid condylarths as Van Valen hypothesized (and we had expected).
Figure 1. Skeletons of the archaeocetes Dorudon atrox and Rodhocetus balochistanensis compared to that of Elomeryx armatus, which is here taken as a model for the extinct group of artiodactyls (Anthracotheriidae, s.l.) that we now think may have given rise to archaic whales. Pakicetus has a distinctive skull and lower jaw, but is not demonstrably different from early protocetids postcranially. Note changes in body proportions and elongation of feet for foot-powered swimming in Rodhocetus, then later reduction of the hind limbs and feet as the tail-powered swimming of modern cetaceans evolved in Dorudon.
A. Elomeryx drawing from W. B. Scott, first published in 1894. B. Pakicetus skull from Gingerich et al. (1983). Terrestrial interpretation is pure speculation: what little is known of the skeleton resembles Rodhocetus. C. Rodhocetus skeletal reconstruction from Gingerich et al. (2001). D. Dorudon skeletal reconstruction from Gingerich and Uhen (1996). Figure may be reproduced for non-profit educational use.
(color for emphasis)
The ankle bones connect Rodhocetus to the artiodactyls root, with Elomeryx as an example.
Please notice the question-marks for the body of pakicetus. What you actually see is that the prediction is that when more information is known about the body, that it will be intermediate between Elomeryx and Rodhocetus.
Curiously that is just exactly what was found.
Artistic renderings are not "predictions" nor are they scientific theories. If you have any doubt about this then refer again to the words in yellow above.
Crayon writing on a picture saying "non-viable forelimbs" is just silly creationist ignorance rather than anything provided in the literature.
Interestingly, rather that show that this means that the theory of evolution fails to explain diversity -- the topic of this thread -- what your example shows is that even more diversity -- more difference -- occurred between Pakicetus and known whale ancestors.
Message 97
"Science" may have learned something, but have all "scientists"? Prior to 1938, coelacanth fossils were misinterpreted as walking fish using the evolution model.
Interestingly, what science does is test predictions against new information, and then it corrects the theoretical structure to accommodate the new information, or the theory that made the prediction is discarded.
In this way science eliminates bad information, leaving information that is likely more correct than previously.
The continuance of this mistake is evidenced in the pakicetus interpretation. In both cases, the interpretation was falsified by the evidence, thus weakening the model overall. When the same mistake is repeated, this is indicative that something more fundamental is flawed.
Except that the actual science predicts an intermediate form, both from the coelacanth and from pakecetus.
Rather than be a mistake, this prediction has been fine-tuned by additional information.
Evolutionists were misled by their model to interpret coelacanth fossils as evidence for a missing link that possessed appendages used for walking.
Fascinatingly, what we see in the coelacanth fossils is a diversity in fin form from the other fish, structure that is also found in early quadra-ped ancestors like the ichthyostega, structures that were also show up in tiktaalik. Once again we see intermediate form as fish diversifies into quadra-peds.
The idea that animals were created fully-developed seems attractive when considering the non-viability of animals caught in a state of transition when macro-evolving. Just look at poor old pakicetus in the illustration. His truncated forelimbs serve neither for swimming or walking.
The problem here is (a) a massive misunderstanding of macroevolution and (b) an argument based, in effect, on a cartoon rather than on the scientific evidence. There is no such thing as "macro-evolving" in evolutionary biology.
Now it has been suggested that you participate in another thread on macroevolution before compiling more errors in your posts here, and that would be a good idea: this thread is about diversity, and how it occurs through speciation, and not about macroevolution per se, and certainly it is not about your interpretations of transitional fossils.
See MACROevolution vs MICROevolution - what is it? for a discussion of macro evolution.
For me, the rejection of macro-evolution has nothing to do with religion but everything to do with science. First of all, the majority of macro-evolution proponents also believe life formed spontaneously in a primordial soup. Some try to dress it up and say on a crystalline substrate.
Which is also off topic.
Interestingly, your opinion is (a) irrelevant to the way the term is used in science and (b) completely unable to alter reality in any way: life will continue to evolve regardless of your opinions.
You either use the terms as they are used in science, or you are talking about something else - a fantasy in your head - instead of reality. Terms are used to convey specific meaning or communication is confused.
In science, evolutionary biological science, macroevolution is the evolution that occurs in the daughter lineages after speciation. This evolution occurs by the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation. This evolution is observed in the world around you.
Because daughter populations are - by the definition of "speciation" - reproductively isolated, they no longer share the same genetic pool of traits. All new mutations only occur in one population or the other. These daughter populations will also live in different ecologies, which means they will have different selective pressures for which traits are advantageous to survival and breeding, and which traits are not advantageous. Thus natural selection will result in different trait selection in the daughter populations to adapt to live in the different ecologies, and over time the accumulation of greater and greater difference between the daughter lineages will be virtually inevitable -- this is macroevolution, as used in biological sciences. This is diversity. This is explained by the theory of evolution.
Your cartoons and your assertions of opinion do not address this issue, and thus you fail to show that the theory of evolution does not explain diversity.
Enjoy.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 95 by Alan Clarke, posted 07-31-2009 2:27 PM Alan Clarke has not replied

  
pandion
Member (Idle past 3000 days)
Posts: 166
From: Houston
Joined: 04-06-2009


Message 139 of 160 (517928)
08-03-2009 11:00 AM
Reply to: Message 97 by Alan Clarke
07-31-2009 5:42 PM


Alan Clarke writes:
Creation theory allows for "genetic variation" within the kinds to allow adaptation. But the variation is limited as evidenced in dog breeding.
Do you have any evidence of a "kind?" It's funny that you should choose dogs as an example of this variation. On the rare occasion that a biologist makes a distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution, he defines the former as variation below the level of species, and the latter as variation at or above the level of species. So you claim that all dogs are the same species, and yet, the family canidae (dogs) contains 14 genera and 36 species. If you wish to limit "dogs" to the genus Canis as creationists invariably do, then there are 7 species. Three of those species, C. latrans, C. lupus, and C. rufus are able to interbreed, which shows that there must be common ancestry. Or, you may wish to limit "dogs" to a particular species, as creationists invariably do. That would mean that dogs are C. lupus, wolves. That has been shown to be true by genetic sequencing. And yet many dogs can still interbreed with wolves as well as C. latrans and C. rufus. On the other hand, if dogs were not domestic animals that are lumped into one non-taxonomic group, they would be classified as several species. You see, while many dogs can and will interbreed, interbreeding is impossible for some varieties, even artificially. In many cases, the offspring are aborted before reaching term. So it seems that dogs have become several different "kinds."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 97 by Alan Clarke, posted 07-31-2009 5:42 PM Alan Clarke has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 143 by Dr Adequate, posted 08-05-2009 11:12 AM pandion has replied

  
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 140 of 160 (518124)
08-04-2009 6:02 AM
Reply to: Message 135 by subbie
08-01-2009 4:25 PM


Mitochondrial Eve
Mitochondrial Eve isn't the first man. It isn't even the first woman. It's the most recent person believed to be an ancestor of everyone living today. In other words, if we had perfect ancestry information about all people who ever lived, everyone alive today would be able to trace their ancestry back to Mitochondrial Eve.
Sorry for the off-topic post, but I wanted to provide a quick correction. Mitochondrial Eve is not the most recent common ancestor, she was the most recent common matrilineal ancestor - the last ancestor we share in common counting only our mother's mother's mother's....etc. She would have predated the last common ancestor by many tens of thousands of years.

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greentwiga
Member (Idle past 3427 days)
Posts: 213
From: Santa
Joined: 06-05-2009


Message 141 of 160 (518261)
08-04-2009 6:39 PM
Reply to: Message 140 by caffeine
08-04-2009 6:02 AM


Re: Mitochondrial Eve
Sorry for the off-topic post, but I wanted to provide a quick correction. Mitochondrial Eve is not the most recent common ancestor, she was the most recent common matrilineal ancestor - the last ancestor we share in common counting only our mother's mother's mother's....etc. She would have predated the last common ancestor by many tens of thousands of years.
I as a fundamentalist Christian know that that is wrong. digress to chinese last names. Slowly, various last names have been dying out. If this trend keeps up, mathematically, they will end with only one last name. Imagine that a group of 1,000 men and 1,000 women survived the bottleneck of the Toba eruption. Then, periodically, one line of mitochondrial DNA died out. Lets say, every thousand years, half of the mitochondrial DNA lines disappeared. After 11,000 years, only one Mitochondrial DNA line would be left. Yet, all the other chromosomes from the rest of the 1,000 women would still be around. If we a truly came from just one woman at the time of Toba, we would have the genetic diversity of Cheetahs. Thus, we have a greater diversity of DNA than Cheetahs but less than a troop of Chimpanzees which did not suffer such a dramatic bottleneck. Yes, unfortunately for me, Mitochrondrial DNA does not prove that we are all descended from one woman who lived some 70,000 - 200,000 years ago depending on whose math you use.

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 Message 140 by caffeine, posted 08-04-2009 6:02 AM caffeine has replied

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losetheclub
Junior Member (Idle past 5344 days)
Posts: 4
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 08-05-2009


Message 142 of 160 (518292)
08-05-2009 1:38 AM
Reply to: Message 99 by Alan Clarke
07-31-2009 6:39 PM


Alan, are you proclaiming that "government supported universities" are the only institutions supporting evolution?
The reason I ask is because many Catholic universities would beg to differ....

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 143 of 160 (518329)
08-05-2009 11:12 AM
Reply to: Message 139 by pandion
08-03-2009 11:00 AM


You see, while many dogs can and will interbreed, interbreeding is impossible for some varieties, even artificially. In many cases, the offspring are aborted before reaching term. So it seems that dogs have become several different "kinds."
Please can you give me links and references supporting this?
Thanks.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 139 by pandion, posted 08-03-2009 11:00 AM pandion has replied

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pandion
Member (Idle past 3000 days)
Posts: 166
From: Houston
Joined: 04-06-2009


Message 144 of 160 (518351)
08-05-2009 1:47 PM
Reply to: Message 143 by Dr Adequate
08-05-2009 11:12 AM


quote:
You see, while many dogs can and will interbreed, interbreeding is impossible for some varieties, even artificially. In many cases, the offspring are aborted before reaching term. So it seems that dogs have become several different "kinds."
  —pandion
Dr Adequate writes:
Please can you give me links and references supporting this?
Thanks.
Sorry, I can't. I don't know if this information is on the Internet. I actually was informed of this by a D.V.M. The examples he gave were a Great Dane or a St. Bernard with a chihuahua. Natural interbreeding is impossible no matter which is male and which is female. Even if artificial crosses are made, the fetus is aborted, still born, or the mother dies during gestation.
Of course, it really doesn't matter if chihuahuas can breed with terriers, and terriers can breed with larger dogs, and those with even larger dogs all the way up to a St. Bernard or Great Dane. According to the Biological Species Concept, chihuahuas and St. Bernards are separate species, not only because they don't interbreed but because they can't. Lions and tigers not only can interbreed, they will. The same is true of Polar bears and Grizzlies.
Edited by pandion, : No reason given.

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 Message 145 by Percy, posted 08-07-2009 6:52 AM pandion has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 145 of 160 (518659)
08-07-2009 6:52 AM
Reply to: Message 144 by pandion
08-05-2009 1:47 PM


pandion writes:
Sorry, I can't. I don't know if this information is on the Internet. I actually was informed of this by a D.V.M.
I think we have to remain skeptical until reliable references can be identified.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 146 of 160 (518678)
08-07-2009 8:33 AM
Reply to: Message 141 by greentwiga
08-04-2009 6:39 PM


Re: Mitochondrial Eve
I'm sorry, but in all honesty I really don't understand what you're trying to say. I might try and start a thread on common ancestors, mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosone Adam this weekend, and then we can try and discuss it there without dragging this thread further off course.

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greentwiga
Member (Idle past 3427 days)
Posts: 213
From: Santa
Joined: 06-05-2009


Message 147 of 160 (518765)
08-07-2009 10:31 PM
Reply to: Message 146 by caffeine
08-07-2009 8:33 AM


Re: Mitochondrial Eve
You have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, and 16 great grandparents. If you are male, you have a y chromosome from one great grandparent and mitochondrial DNA from another great grandparent. The other 14 have donated various parts of your other chromosomes, but we can't prove who donated what. If there were 500 women alive at the time of Mitochondrial Eve, just like your great grandparents, they donated a variety of genes, though only one woman donated all the mitochondrial DNA.

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pandion
Member (Idle past 3000 days)
Posts: 166
From: Houston
Joined: 04-06-2009


Message 148 of 160 (518768)
08-08-2009 12:29 AM
Reply to: Message 145 by Percy
08-07-2009 6:52 AM


Percy writes:
I think we have to remain skeptical until reliable references can be identified.
I've looked into it on the web as much as I could. I did find lots of people who have a cousin or know someone who heard that Chihuahuas and Great Danes did, in fact, interbreed. I guess, when it comes right down to it, their references are about as reliable as mine, since mine are really nothing more than "I heard from someone..." Personally, I am skeptical of unreasonable claims while I am inclined to provisionally accept statements of knowledge about reasonable events from a knowledgeable source. But I understand that you don't know me or my Vet, so I can understand your skepticism about something that you probably haven't ever considered before. But I'm going to be seeing the Vet next week and if I have the opportunity, I'll ask.
But, when it comes right down to it, you've got to admit that a Great Dane (m) x Chihuahua (f) is highly unlikely. And, in spite of what some poster's cousin has heard, a Chihuahua (m) x Great Dane (f) seems equally unlikely. Things just don't match up, either way. I haven't been able to find any documented example of either cross happening naturally.
When it comes to artificial crosses, I wonder why. Why would a breeder even attempt such a cross? Breeders are in the business to make money, and I can't believe that such a cross would actually be valuable. I even found a breeder on the web that breeds both Chihuahuas and Great Danes, and it apparently hasn't occurred to this breeder to cross the two.
But given that natural crosses are so much more unlikely than crosses between tigers and lions or crosses between grizzly bears and polar bears, and that these are considered to be 4 species and not 2 with variation in kind, I think that the observation that Chihuahuas and Great Danes would be, in fact, classified as separate species, were it not for the fact that they are domestic animals, is reasonable. But the question is moot, since both breeds of dog are classified as Canis lupus domesticus anyway.
You can be as skeptical as you want about their inability to interbreed. Personally, I'm skeptical about their ability to do so under any circumstances.

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 Message 145 by Percy, posted 08-07-2009 6:52 AM Percy has replied

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 149 of 160 (518785)
08-08-2009 6:56 AM
Reply to: Message 148 by pandion
08-08-2009 12:29 AM


What I found after a brief search with Google Scholar is that chihuahuas and Great Danes are unlikely to breed naturally, but I found nothing reliable that said it was impossible. They are mutually interfertile. I found nothing authoritative that the pregnancy couldn't go full term in either case, though problems and issues wouldn't be surprising.
But it would be nice if we could once and for all dispense with the creationist argument of "a dog is a dog is a dog" by discovering that there actually are some breeds of dogs that are not interfertile.
You noted the main problem, that most people would be relucant to introduce this argument into a discussion: "A guy on the Internet told me that his vet told him that Great Danes and chihuahuas can't interbreed and are actually different species." And of course anybody convinced would have to say (if honest), "A guy on the Internet told me that another guy on the Internet told him that his vet told him..."
So speaking for myself, I have to remain skeptical and not use the information until I have a reliable reference.
--Percy

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Minnemooseus
Member
Posts: 3941
From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior)
Joined: 11-11-2001
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 150 of 160 (518863)
08-09-2009 12:18 AM
Reply to: Message 149 by Percy
08-08-2009 6:56 AM


Breeding giant Chihuahuas
What I found after a brief search with Google Scholar is that chihuahuas and Great Danes are unlikely to breed naturally, but I found nothing reliable that said it was impossible.
Being that I work nights at a veterinary clinic, I have access to the inner workings of the Veterinary Information Network. Alas, I was unable to track down anything on the crossbreeding of very small and very large dogs. I will try to remember to ask the doctors about this matter.
I did encounter a little discussion at VIN, about the interbreeding of dogs and coyotes. Yes they do. The reference given? Wikipedia.
quote:
Breeding experiments in Germany with poodles, coyotes, and later on with the resulting dog-coyote hybrids showed that unlike wolfdogs, coydogs show a decrease in fertility, significant communication problems as well as an increase of genetic diseases after three generations of interbreeding.
and
quote:
Coyotes have also been known on occasion to mate with wolves, though this is less common than with dogs due to the wolf's hostility to the coyote. The offspring, known as a coywolf, is generally intermediate in size to both parents, being larger than a pure coyote, but smaller than a pure wolf. A study showed that of 100 coyotes collected in Maine, 22 had half or more wolf ancestry, and one was 89 percent wolf. A theory has been proposed that the large eastern coyotes in Canada are actually hybrids of the smaller western coyotes and wolves that met and mated decades ago as the coyotes moved toward New England from their earlier western ranges.[20] The Red Wolf is thought by certain scientists to be in fact a wolf/coyote hybrid rather than a unique species.
A Coyote-German Shepherd hybrid
Moose
Edited by Minnemooseus, : Add quotes from Wikipedia.

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